Vitani smiled as she fingered the charm bracelet Luke had gotten for her for her birthday. So far, it held an Owl charm (from Annabeth), a strawberry charm (from Grover), a winged shoe, a broomstick, a firework rocket, and a star charm.

But now it was Luke's birthday, November 18th. And Vitani had a big day planned for him, she was going to take him to see Diagon Ally for the first time.

As soon as she reached the Hermes Cabin, she knocked on the door.

Travis Stoll was the one to answer. "Hey Vitani, looking for Luke?"

"Yeah, is he here?" Vitani asked.

"Yeah, in his room. What are you giving him for his birthday? We already gave him his birthday punches by the way." Travis smirked.

Vitani rolled her eyes. "You didn't turn him black and blue did you?"

"Nah, Luke is way tougher than that." Connor said, popping into the conversation.

"Of course, now if you'll excuse me..." Vitani said, slipping past the twins.

"By your leave, Princess." Travis teased before they joined some of their brothers in the living room, playing card games.

Vitani knocked on Luke's bedroom door.

"Come in!"

Inside, she saw Luke in the middle of dressing, as he was just about to put on his white button up shirt.

"Good morning, Princess." Luke grinned, walking over to give her a kiss.

Vitani smiled into the kiss before it was broken. "Good morning to you too, birthday boy. How does it feel to be 19 years old?"

"Pretty good." Luke smiled before it turned slightly bitter. "Dad even gave me a present... a new sword. I call it Backbiter."

"That's good." Vitani said, smiling as she ogled Luke's delicious abs and strong back.

"He also gave me something else... These coins. They're real gold as far as I can tell, but they aren't Drachma..."

"Can I see?" Vitani asked.

"Sure." Luke said, handing her a sack.

She opened the sack and widened her eyes. Gold Galleons. Hermes had given Luke a sack full of galleons. She guessed that he somehow knew that Luke was going to need them today.

"Galleons."

"Hmm?"

"They're Galleons, remember when I told you about the Wizarding world?"

"Oh! Why would my dad give me a sack full of galleons? I'm not a wizard."

"Actually, it's a good thing he gave them to you, and there seems to be quite a bit in here. Maybe around 50 or so Galleons? That'll get you a lot where we're going. And I guarantee you'll want to use them today!"

"You mean...?" Luke turned to her with a growing smile on his face as he shrugged on a thin black jacket.

"Yep, I'm taking you to Diagon Alley for your birthday! You've been wanting to go for a while, and today is the perfect day to go."

"How are we going to get there?" Luke asked, excited.

"Portkey."

"Port-what?"


"My back hurts."

"Sorry, should've warned you that first timers usually have rough landings. I usually apparate, but I was afraid that you might lose your lunch afterwards."

"Apparate?"

"The wizard method of teleportation. It feels like you're being squeezed through a small tube, and most people get nauseous and vomit the first few times."

"Oh. Where are we?"

Vitani grinned. "The Leaky Cauldron in London."

Luke squinted at the sign that suddenly came into view. "How come I didn't notice it before."

"Most people would just see a run down shop, unless you're a wizard or you're specifically looking for it. It's to prevent muggles—non magical folk—from finding the place, as it's also the entrance to Diagon Alley." Vitani said before taking out her wand and tapping both Luke and herself with it.

"What did you do?"

"I put a spell on us that prevents others from noticing us. As you know, I'm famous here and don't want to be mobbed by either reporters or fans while I'm here." Vitani said.

"Good thinking." Luke nodded and took Vitani's hand into his own.

The couple walked in and slipped through the crowed before going to the back of the pub, where Vitani tapped the bricks in the correct order with her wand.

Luke widened his eyes as the bricks moved away to reveal a bustling alley full of people wearing robes and wizard hats.

"Luke, welcome to Diagon Alley!"


"Okay, so go over again the wizarding currency..."

"There's 29 knuts, the bronze coins, to a sickle, the silver coins, and 17 sickles to a Galleon. One galleon is about 5 British pounds, or about 7 dollars US. This is just to make our currency affordable to muggle-borns, wizards who have normal non magical parents." Vitani explained patiently.

"Got it, so where to first?" Luke asked, taking in all the magical shops with child-like wonder.

"How about the Magical Menagerie? You can buy a pet there." Vitani suggested. "Mr. D gave the okay as long as he didn't have to deal with it."

"A pet? Sure, why not? I've never had a pet before." Luke said after some consideration.

The two walked into the shop, and Luke studied each animal carefully before stopping on a black lion-like cat with glowing green eyes. The cat seemed to like him as it came pawing at its cage, trying to get to Luke.

"Wow, a black Kneazle, and it really likes you." Vitani said amazed.

"What's special about a Kneazle?" Luke asked.

"Well, they have a very high level of intelligence, are independent and occasionally aggressive, and have an uncanny ability to detect suspicious and distrustful people. They can also safely guide their owner home. They can follow orders too. My godfather once asked my friend's half Kneazle cat, Crookshanks, to get a sheet of passwords for him from our Gryffindor dorm, and Crookshanks absolutely hated Scabbers, he chased him around all the time."

"Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew right? The man who betrayed your parents." Luke said quietly.

"Yeah... So anyways, a Kneazle would make a great pet for you." Vitani said.

"Hmm...alright. They're independent right? Like Hedwig?"

"Yeah, the cat would just probably wander around the camp, chasing rats and mice. He'll make for nice company though." Vitani said.

"Good! Alright, I'll get him." Luke said, plucking the cat's cage off the shelf and taking him to the register.

The worker also got Luke the basic necessities, such as a large bag of cat food, a food dish, a collar and a fish shaped tag, a brush, cat shampoo, a box of kneazle treats, and a booklet on how to care for the Kneazle. Vitani paid 30 galleons for everything, and told Luke that she could owl order extra supplies if he ran out.

"Your name shall be Loki, after the Norse God of Mischief." Luke grinned.

The cat meowed in acceptance and purred.


They stopped at the Sweet Shop next, where they both bought plenty of Candy. Vitani mostly stuck to the ones she liked best, which was Treacle fudge, chocolate frogs, sugar free droobles best blowing gum, jelly slugs, cauldron cakes, crystallized pineapple, and Sugar quills.

Luke got some Bertie Botts every Flavour beans, and was planning to eat them with his friends as some sort of game, Sound effect jelly poppers (which made you make realistic sound effects when you ate them), chocolate frogs, and sugar quills.

After that, they hit Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, where Luke and Vitani both got Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and Decoy Detonators. Vitani then got an entire set of Weasleys' Wildfire Whizbangs, a few bottles of the Ten-Second pimple vanisher, and a purple pygmy puff for Annabeth. Luke got himself a carton of Canary Creams and a portable swamp.

Before they left the shop however, George threatened Luke to hex him to oblivion if he ever hurt Vitani, making Luke pale slightly.

They visited Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlour next, and their last stop was the Quidditch Shop, where Luke got a good look at all the brooms on sale, including the Firebolt Broom.

Vitani had bought another Firebolt Broom too, just in case the one she had broke somehow.

When it was time to go home, they used another portkey to head back to Thalia's tree.


Annabeth was pleased with the purple Pygmy Puff Vitani had gotten for her and named her Twilight. Twilight normally rode on Annabeth's shoulder, or would be sleeping in a shoebox with a cotton ball nest Annabeth made for her that sat on Annabeth's bedside table.

Loki mostly walked around the camp, chasing mice and rats. The Kneazle however seemed to dislike an unclaimed boy named Ethan Nakamura however, hissing whenever the boy was near, which made Luke eye him suspiciously. He remembered that Kneazles had an uncanny ability to detect suspicious and distrustful people, so he promised himself to keep an eye on the younger camper, and to make sure that Vitani would never be alone with him despite knowing that she could take care of herself.

Other than that, Loki acted like a normal cat, he occasionally begged for table scraps, rubbed himself against people's legs if he wanted attention, and disliked baths unless they was absolutely necessary. Since Loki mostly did his own thing, Vitani installed a cat flap for him on Luke's bedroom door.

Soon the months flew by, Vitani and Luke steadily got closer and she even taught Luke how to fly on a broom while Luke continued to give her extra lessons on swordsmanship, and she was getting better every day. She doubted that she could ever be better than Luke without using 'The Sword' card, which addition to turning her star wand into a sword that can cut through just about anything, the card also gains its strength from the heart of the person who wields it and gave the wielder the skills of a master swordsman.